Switching from Sway to Hyprland

2024-07-23 · 3 minutes read · Hyprland Sway Wayland NixOS Linux

Introduction

After four years with Sway, I’ve decided to transition to Hyprland. My journey from EXWM to Sway began about four years ago, and I documented the experience in this post three years ago. While Sway has served me well, it has its limitations that I’ve used hacks and workarounds to circumvent.

The Limitations of Sway

One major drawback of Sway is its screen sharing capabilities. Although I managed to get screen sharing somewhat functional, it only allows sharing the full screen.

The Ultrawide Monitor Challenge

This limitation is particularly problematic for someone like me, who uses an ultrawide monitor with a high resolution and odd aspect ratio. Sharing such a large screen makes it difficult for others to view the content effectively. For instance, when conducting presentations or collaborating online, the full-screen sharing of an ultrawide monitor can be impractical and cumbersome.

Workarounds and Hacks

To circumvent this issue, I’ve tried various hacks in Sway. One of them involved running nested Sway sessions, reloading specific environment variables, and launching a browser inside the nested session to enable full-screen sharing. While this method works, it’s far from ideal and introduces unnecessary complexity into my workflow.

The Ongoing Issue

There’s an open issue emersion/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr#107 aiming to address the inability to share specific windows in Sway. This issue, active since 2021, offers numerous workarounds but lacks a definitive solution. The lack of progress on this front several years later has pushed me to look elsewhere.

Discovering Hyprland

I’ve been keeping an eye on Hyprland for a while, and it seems to have robust support for sharing specific windows, regions, or the full screen. This feature works seamlessly, making it a significant upgrade over Sway. Hyprland’s approach to window management is similar but also different from Sway, requiring some configuration and getting used to.

Setting Up Hyprland

Configuration and Customization

One of the major projects that made the transition to Hyprland easier is the plugin hy3, which makes Hyprland function more like Sway. For instance, Hyprland doesn’t support tabbed layouts, something that hy3 adds, making the transition smoother for Sway users.

Improved Workflow

With the ability to share specific windows or regions, I can now conduct presentations and collaborate online without the previous hassles. This improvement alone has made the transition worthwhile.

Conclusion

If you’re considering a switch or facing similar challenges with Sway, I highly recommend giving Hyprland a try. The community support and the robust feature set make it a compelling choice for any Linux user looking for a more flexible and powerful window manager.

I may go in depth in further posts about different components (such as, lock screens, idle management, wallpaper handling) of my Hyprland setup.